It was my birthday last week, and I started the day with an early morning cycle to Nimmo’s Pier. It was around 7am, the sun was shining, the air was calm and I had the spot to myself for a while. Not a bad way to start a birthday. I wasn’t quite alone – two regulars were nearby, fishing for breakfast. A bottle-nosed dolphin has been seen around the mouth of the Corrib for a while now, but last week was my first time to see it. It was so quiet that I could hear the whoosh as it exhaled upon surfacing.
As the picture shows, the otter is equipped with the right teeth for crunching fish, crabs or whatever it catches.
Nearby was an otter, nonchantly floating on its back and crunching through whatever it had just caught.
It is eleven years since I photographed a dolphin close to Galway city, and nearly five years since I’ve seen an otter in daylight in the city. And on my birthday, both show up at once. They have appeared on subsequent days in the same spot, so anyone in Galway can treat themselves to the same birthday present.